Jul 3, 2007

I hope I'm not the last one on this planet to know, but I'm really pleased with furniture firm Artek's recent initiative of amassing (and subsequently redistributing) their old, previously-released furniture.

Contrary to the common notion of buying antiques that are well maintained or restored, what one can expect here are really imperfect, worn-out furniture. But that's the whole idea - to own a piece of quality furniture that has withstood the test of time. As Tom Dixon, the man behind the whole concept, says in a Monocle interview, "One of the themes that's running through the stuff that we're doing is - I don't know, that overused word of sustainability, really. The way we're tackling it is by even going to the point of not designing at all. So buying back all of the old Artek furniture from the last seventy years... Trying to go to schools and hospitals and buying up or swapping or exchanging furniture so that we build up some of the Artek furniture in our stock that's got some patina and some history. I think that what's quite nice about the Artek furniture is that it grows old gracefully. My favourite Artek is a twenty or thirty year old Artek." The result is a debut showcase of old, battered Artek stools (the company had bought back) at the recently concluded Salone del Mobile in Milan. One neither know who sat on it nor what the previous owner did on it! In fact, I think this 'mysterious history' is part of its allure. Afterall, wasn't there a craze over previously-worn and torn jeans just sometime back?

Seems like the cleverest design (and the most sustainable one) these days is not designing at all!